Yesterday Daniel Mahoney interviewed Ignat Solzhenitsyn to kick off the 2018 Notre Dame fall conference, “Higher Powers”, largely devoted to the thought and legacy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Watch the video of their discussion below. It was also live-blogged here by Rod Dreher.
The Paris house Fayard, Solzhenitsyn’s longtime French publisher, has published two new Solzhenitsyn titles: the Journal de la Roue rouge (Journal of the Red Wheel) and Révolution et mensonge (Revolution and the Lie). The first is a new translation by Françoise Lesourd of a major work that tracks the author’s discoveries and doubts during the major portion of his work on the novel (from 1965 through 1991). The second combines two previously available texts—Vivre sans mentir (Live Not By Lies!) and Leçons de Février (Lessons of February)—with a new Georges Nivat translation: Deux révolutions: la française at la russe (Two Revolutions: the French and the Russian) of Solzhenitsyn’s 1984 article comparing and contrasting those two cataclysms.
The New York Journal of Books reviews Between Two Millstones, Book 1.
“Between Two Millstones picks up the story of Solzhenitsyn’s remarkable and courageous literary and personal life where The Oak and the Calf and Invisible Allies, his two earlier memoirs, left off. It is a tale of the first stirrings of freedom in the West mixed with the fear of further Soviet retribution, the unceasing demands of celebrity, frustration with the Western elite’s commercialism, secularism, and legalism, and the personal desire to be left alone to complete his most important literary project, The Red Wheel. ”
At last, Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches of Exile, 1974-1978 is available in English from University of Notre Dame Press, from Amazon, or wherever books are sold.
Ignat Solzhenitsyn — renowned conductor and pianist, and son of the late Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn — will speak at the University of Notre Dame for the launch of the first English translation of his father’s memoir, “Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches of Exile, 1974-1978,” published by University of Notre Dame Press at the centenary of the author’s birth.
The launch will take place during “Higher Powers,” a three-day Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture conference examining the proper relationship between God, the human person and the state. Ignat Solzhenitsyn and Daniel Mahoney, distinguished Solzhenitsyn scholar and professor of political science at Assumption College, will deliver a joint plenary session at 8 p.m. Nov. 1 (Thursday) in McKenna Hall Auditorium.
The current issue of the French weekly LePoint has excerpts from two new Solzhenitsyn titles forthcoming next week from Fayard.
“Warning to the West”, a collection of Solzhenitsyn’s speeches to the Americans and the British in 1975 and 1976, is newly available from Vintage Digital, both on Amazon (UK) and iTunes (UK).
“During 1975 and 1976, Nobel Prize-winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn embarked on a series of speeches across America and Britain that would shock and scandalise both countries. His message: the West was veering towards moral and spiritual bankruptcy, and with it the world’s one hope against tyranny and totalitarianism.
From Solzhenitsyn’s warnings about the allure of communism, to his rebuke that the West should not abandon its age-old concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, the speeches collected in Warning to the West provide insight into Solzhenitsyn’s uncompromising moral vision. Read today, their message remains as powerfully urgent as when Solzhenitsyn first delivered them.”
This exhibition, marking the centenary of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s birth, coincides with the launch of the Solzhenitsyn Initiative by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture as well as the publication of the first English translation of several of Solzhenitsyn’s works by the University of Notre Dame Press. Through 14 December.
Elena Strokanova in Russkiy Mir recaps proceedings at the recently-concluded conference.
An international conference is opening at Northern Vermont University to mark the centennial of Solzhenitsyn. The Associated Press has more details.
Kevin O’Connor at VTDigger details Vermont initiatives to celebrate the Solzhenitsyn centenary.
The Landsgemeinde gathers to vote in Appenzell, Switzerland, in 2013. Photo: Rosmarie Widmer Gysel.
The September issue of New Criterion excerpts this remarkable passage from the forthcoming Between Two Millstones, Book 1, about the Swiss half-canton Appenzell, and its ancient voting rituals that Solzhenitsyn witnessed just before his first journey to North America in April 1975.
The Cavendish Historical Society Museum hosts an exhibit on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, which will become a permanent exhibit. 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of Solzhenitsyn's birth; in commemoration of this, the State of Vermont issued a proclamation in his name, observing the author's life work, which included living and writing in exile from the Soviet Union / Russia, in Cavendish. Margo Caulfield from the Historical Society gives us the summary of Solzhenitsyn's life & work, as portrayed through the museum's exhibit. She also discusses the children's book she authored about Solzhenitsyn.
The September issue of Commentary excerpts the first few pages of Between Two Millstones, Book 1, forthcoming from Notre Dame in October. These pages, written in 1978, pick up where The Oak and the Calf leaves off, beginning with Solzhenitsyn’s expulsion to West Germany on February 13, 1974.
Over at Real Clear Politics, Daniel J. Mahoney writes perceptively about today’s Russia.
Matthew Janney at Culturetrip on Solzhenitsyn and objective truth.
“Friday, 3 August 2018 marks the 10th anniversary of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s death. At a time when alternative facts and fake news are commonplace in public discourse, the Russian writer’s commitment to objectivity is a refreshing reminder of the existence of truth.”
A reflection at the National Endowment for the Humanities about Solzhenitsyn’s years in Vermont.
Philippe Gélie writes about “Alexandre Soljenitsyne, le secret bien gardé du Vermont”.
What is the proper relationship between God, the human person, and the state? In a 1993 address, Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed that, “having refused to recognize the unchanging Higher Power above us, we have filled that space with personal imperatives, and suddenly life has become a harrowing prospect indeed.” Twenty-five years after Solzhenitsyn’s address, and one hundred years after his birth, the Center for Ethics and Culture’s 19th Annual Fall Conference will consider how every human pursuit can be oriented toward higher powers and reflect on the true measures of social progress, the role of morality in law and politics, and the dynamics of liberty, dignity, self-sacrifice, and the good in public life.
The Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center
ASC Blog
His Writings
His Life
Landmarks & Exhibits
Photo galleries
Video Library
Resources
Donate
Contact Us
The Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center supports explorations into the life and writings of the Nobel Laureate and Russian writer and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
